Reply With QuoteYou are right about the climate, and I was not concerned about the cities. The mountains are what makes it look smaller than a continent.
The graticule suggests a large scale map right at the equator in particular. A large scale map at a higher latitude would have a rectangular grid that's taller than it is wide.Originally Posted by rdanhenry
Last edited by Hai-Etlik; 08-18-2013 at 02:27 AM.
You are right about the climate, and I was not concerned about the cities. The mountains are what makes it look smaller than a continent.
Thanks for the info, everyone! Sorry I've been so slow to respond.
I can see what you're saying about the mountains, though I'm not sure how much I can do about that at this point with my level of ability (which is only barely more than following a tutorial word for word), but at the very least, I'll keep it in mind for next time. There are a couple more continents in this world that may need mapping.
The labeled cities are simply the largest ones in each kingdom, there are thousands upon thousands of small, unmarked villages of just a few hundred to a few thousand people each within each region. I thought about marking more locations to make it look more "settled", but I was afraid of the map getting too cluttered.
I'll see what I can do about the roads, maybe a lighter brown would work.
As for distortions in the grid and equatorial stuff, this is for a D&D-esque fantasy world, so I'm not really bothering with things like planet curvature and the like since they'll never come into play. I'm also pretty seriously considering doing a "magical flat planet" type world, like what is in Golden Sun or Exalted.
I am planning on adding a scale, a map key, and a border in the end. I've seen several good map border tutorials on here, but I haven't spotted anything on scales or keys, any suggestions?
To make settled places look settled you could show less forest and more plain/farmland using texture or just by getting rid of the forest. That should do, because you can't put all the places name on the map, it's simply too much. What you did seems ok.
The distoritions are ok. I have never seen a player complain about the travel distance being inconsistent with reality.
I'd suggest dropping the graticule then, particularly for a flat world. Latitude and longitude would be completely meaningless on a flat world.
If you want a grid just for visual ease of eyeballing distances, a hex-grid would a good alternative that won't suggest latitude and longitude to anyone.
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